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Citation

If you use pykurucz in your research, please cite the following papers. Accurate citation helps us secure continued funding and maintenance for the project.

pykurucz Paper

@misc{kim2026pykuruczpurepythonreimplementation,
  title         = {pyKurucz: A Pure Python Reimplementation of Kurucz ATLAS12 and SYNTHE for Stellar Spectrum Synthesis},
  author        = {Elliot M. Kim and Yuan-Sen Ting},
  year          = {2026},
  eprint        = {2603.11693},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  primaryClass  = {astro-ph.SR},
  url           = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11693}
}

kurucz-a1 Emulator Paper

If you use the kurucz-a1 atmosphere emulator (the warm-start stage of Stellar Parameters), please also cite:

@article{li2025kurucza1,
  title   = {Differentiable Stellar Atmospheres with Physics-Informed
             Neural Networks},
  author  = {Li, Jiadong and Jian, Mingjie and Ting, Yuan-Sen
             and Green, Gregory M.},
  journal = {arXiv e-prints},
  year    = {2025},
  eprint  = {2507.06357},
  url     = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06357}
}

Original Kurucz Codes

Because pykurucz is a direct reimplementation of Robert L. Kurucz's ATLAS and SYNTHE codes, we also ask that you acknowledge the original work:

"This research made use of pykurucz (Kim & Ting 2026), a Python reimplementation of the ATLAS and SYNTHE codes originally developed by R. L. Kurucz."

Key historical references for the Fortran codes include:

  • ATLAS12: Kurucz, R. L. 1993, ATLAS9 Stellar Atmosphere Programs and 2 km/s grid
  • SYNTHE: Kurucz, R. L., & Avrett, E. H. 1981, SAO Special Report 391
  • GFALL line list: Kurucz, R. L. 2011, Canadian Journal of Physics, 89, 417

How to Acknowledge

A suitable acknowledgment paragraph for your paper might read:

"The synthetic spectra in this work were computed with pykurucz (Kim & Ting 2026), a pure Python reimplementation of the ATLAS12 and SYNTHE codes originally developed by R. L. Kurucz. The atmosphere warm-start was provided by the kurucz-a1 emulator (Li et al. 2025)."

BibTeX entries are also in the README

The README.md file in the repository root contains the same BibTeX entries, ready to copy into your reference manager.

Next Steps

  • Read the License for terms of use.
  • See Acknowledgements for the broader community contributions that make pykurucz possible.